gto General Notes. | December, 
with chains of unequal length, and the land surveyors are checked 
by astronomical determinations. In carrying out this operation, 
which will be seen to be one pigeat nicety, five principal meridians 
have been sl d in part traced—the 97th, 102d, 
106th, I toth and 114th; and napa base lines connecting them 
have been measured and marked. One of these, on the parallel of 
52° 10',is one hundred and eigthy-three miles long. The sources 
of the Frazer river were first reached in February, 1875, and 
found in a semi-circular basin completely closed in by glaciers 
the thermometer below the temperature of freezing mercury, 
and lived for the last three days, as he expresses it, “in the 
anticipation of a meal at the journey’s end.” We are still im- 
perfectly acquainted with the region north of the parallel of 50° 
in British Columbia, where the Canadian engineers have long 
been searching for a practicable railway line from one or other 
o 
to the Pacific. These passes are, the Yellowhead at an elevation 
of 3645 feet, the Pine river at 2800 feet, and the Peace river said 
to be only 1650 feet above the sea. The Dominion Government 
has recently adopted a line from the Yellowhead pass to Burrard 
inlet, which may be made out on any good map by following the 
course of the Thompson and Frazer rivers. 
Dr. Dawson has recently explored the Queen Charlotte islands. 
He regards them as a partially submerged mountain chain, a con- 
tinuation northwestward of that of Vancouver’s island, and of the 
Olympian mountains in Washington territory. An island one 
hundred and fifty-six miles long and fifty-six wide, enjoying a 
temperate climate, and covered with forests of timber of some 
value Sais Abies menziesii) is not likely to be left to nature 
much longe 
The Abbé ‘Petitot has recently made some remarkable explora- 
tions in the Mackenzie river district, between the Great Slave lake 
and the Arctic sea. Starting sometimes from St. Joseph’s mission 
7 t. Theresa on Great Bear lake; sometimes from Notre 
Dame de Bonne Espérance on the Mackenzie, points many hun- 
dreds of miles asunder, he has, on foot or in canoe, often accom- 
panied only by Indians or Esquimaux, again and again traversed 
that desolate country in every direction. He has passed four 
winters and a summer on Great Bear lake and explored every 
‘part of it. He has navigated the Mackenzie ten times between 
Great Slave lake and Fort Good Hope, and eight times between 
the latter post and its mouth. We owe to his visits in 1870 the 
disentanglement of a confusion which existed between the mouth 
of the Peel river (R. Plumée), and those of the Mackenzie owing 
